SHIRLEY FISCHLER: Eager to see what's in store

Like so many women in this country, I am a shopaholic. It's true; I confess.

But it's sort of a weird version of shopaholism: I get totally enraptured in supermarkets; I can spend hours and hours in the local hardware and/or home renovation store.

In fact, my version of shopaholism is so narrow in scope that if you turn me loose in the average mall or one of those giant chain department stores or gargantuan toy stores, I rapidly become terminally bored and can't wait to leave.

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If either of my daughters-in-law drag me shopping with them, they each know that they have to move fast and efficiently, or I'll just walk away and go back to the car and read. If they can't get me through Crate and Barrel or Golf (in Israel) in record time, they know I'm liable to go catatonic

Truth is, it's probably not boredom that turns me off at most superstores -- it's a sort of shutting down. A half-hour at a large mall and I'm starting to feel as though I'm losing consciousness. By 45 minutes, I'm looking for the exit and trying not to burst into tears or cries of rage and pain! I have no idea why; I just can't take "regular" shopping.

But drop me off at a large supermarket I've never seen before, and I'm in heaven -- absolute heaven. I could spend hours just cruising the aisles and trying to map out where everything is; what strange, new brands they carry that I've never seen before and what wondrous and exotic items they carry in their ethnic and gourmet food sections.

The shelves and often the refrigerators of each of my sons' homes are chuck-a-bluck full of items I've brought home from supermarket "research adventures." Wondrous Indian sauces or Thai concoctions lurk behind the everyday items, just waiting for me to return and test run a new recipe.

Some of the supermarket adventures are successful; others are not. I finally found fish sauce and lemon grass in an Israeli supermarket for a Thai recipe I wanted to make. But I've scoured the entire country for a normal, everyday American-style pie plate and have yet to find a single one.

My second favorite shopping venue is the hardware store. Oh, what bliss! I can barely pound a nail in straight and have no idea half the time whether I want "mollie" screws, wood screws, brads, tacks, nuts or bolts. But, then, that's not really the attraction of hardware stores -- at least not to this particular nut. No, it's the trays and baskets and containers of shiny metal. It's the chrome, copper or bends and twists of plastic plumbing supplies. It's the almost-magical bits and pieces, wires and fixtures for electrical work. It's the mysteries surrounding the parts and pieces and what's to be done with them.

Going to hardware stores makes me wish I had become a carpenter or woodworker, just so I could have all of those wonderful saws, blades, planes, levels, electric drills, hammers, chisels. In truth, I do have some of them, but seldom use any -- unless something falls apart and I just happen to have a clue how to fix it and with what.

As I draw closer and closer to that fateful day when one or the other of our offspring decides it's time to put Mom away, I wish they'd just drive me up to the nearest supermarket and drop me off -- a modern, urban version of putting Grandma on an ice floe to drift into oblivion, when she's no longer useful!

Just think: Once I'm completely demented, the local supermarket will become a Wonderland of fascinating new objects and smells ... and it'll be brand new every time I go!

Shirley Fischler resides in Boiceville and New York City. Her column appears Saturday in the Life section.